Scientists warn, without good biosecurity measures 'alien organisms' on Earth may become a reality stranger than fiction.
Published in international journal BioSciences, a team of scientists, including Dr. Phill Cassey, Head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Adelaide, are calling for greater recognition of the biosecurity risks ahead of the space industry.
"In addition to government-led space missions, the arrival of private companies such as SpaceX has meant there are now more players in space exploration than ever before," said Associate Professor Cassey.
"We need to take action now to mitigate those risks."
Space biosecurity concerns itself with both the transfer of organisms from Earth to space (forward contamination) and vice-versa (backward contamination). While the research points out that at present the risk of alien organisms surviving the journey is low, it's not impossible.
Dr. Cassey said: "Risks that have low probability of occurrence, but have the potential for extreme consequences, are at the heart of biosecurity management. Because when things go wrong, they go really wrong."
Journal Reference:
Anthony Ricciardi, Phillip Cassey, Stefan Leuko, et al. Planetary Biosecurity: Applying Invasion Science to Prevent Biological Contamination from Space Travel, BioScience (DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biab115)
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24 2021, @03:27PM (13 children)
When man stumbles over some biological threat in space, he will bring it right straight back to earth. The talking heads in MSM media will tell us that it would be racisss to abandon the infected individuals out there in space, and that we need to hug a spaceman to get over our racisss attitudes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24 2021, @03:29PM
(Score: 3, Touché) by choose another one on Wednesday November 24 2021, @03:52PM (5 children)
When man stumbles over some batological threat in a cave, he will bring it straight back out to the surface. The talking heads in MSM media will tell us that it would be racisss to abandon the infected individuals in the cave, and that we need to hug a caveman to get over our racisss attitudes.
FTFY, *cough*.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24 2021, @04:18PM (2 children)
Ok Batman.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday November 24 2021, @06:26PM (1 child)
For those who didn't see the TV show in the 1960's, Bruce Wayne (and his youthful ward Dick Grayson) were Incels.
In one particular episode where it is necessary to temporarily set up a batcave in the UK in order to catch Lord Fogg, they fail to make mention of having to adapt the Bat Computer for 240 VAC.
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(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Friday November 26 2021, @04:59PM
Maybe the Dynamic Duo brought over a portable nuclear generator to power the Bat computer?
https://newatlas.com/energy/radiant-portable-advanced-nuclear/ [newatlas.com]
"California company Radiant has secured funding to develop a compact, portable, "low-cost" one-megawatt nuclear micro-reactor that fits in a shipping container, powers about 1,000 homes and uses a helium coolant instead of water."
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 24 2021, @08:47PM (1 child)
Racist? You've been watching too much Star Trek. Specist. The vegan nutjobs are already using that term. And you're NOT going to find any aliens that look anything like humans; how much do you resemble a squid? An elephant, and they're even mammals? A spider? And all those species arose from the first abiogenesis on Earth and you expect anything like Vulcans from a completely separate abiogenesis on another planet or moon??
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Wednesday November 24 2021, @09:15PM
Well, that's going to make it pretty weird for Captain Kirk. Not that I would fail to watch the YouTube videos.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday November 24 2021, @04:20PM
Or....y'know...abandoning people to die of asphyxiation is wrong....
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 24 2021, @08:38PM (3 children)
I don't think you'll find any biological threats. I suspect that if/when we do find life, it will be so different that infection won't be possible. Extraterrestrial life may be based on completely different chemistry, and I don't see the danger.
Keeping our bugs off of other bodies is something different. We already contaminated the moon with life when that Indian lander crashed. And we've been at it for such a short time... you better hope aliens ARE chemically incompatible, because we are a species prone to incompetence!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 24 2021, @11:25PM (2 children)
LOL - I read a story years ago about a predator. He didn't want any meat or fluids from humans. He needed the phosphorus found in our bones. It was something of an annoyance to dismantle the human body to get at those precious chemicals, but a predator does what a predator has to do.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday November 26 2021, @03:21PM (1 child)
A.E. Van Vogt Black Destroyer [mcgrewbooks.com]. But the alien creature looks very similar to a black panther, according to the picture on the magazine cover.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 27 2021, @01:23PM
Yep, that's the one. Destroy a human body, just to extract a pound of one specific organic compound. It reminds me of killer whales, attacking a great white, extracting and eating the liver, and leaving the rest of the kill to drift in the ocean.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday November 25 2021, @03:30AM
They're just saying "space covid" which isn't unreasonable. We really should at least think about it somewhat and not react when the shit hits the fan like it did with covid.
(Score: 2) by oumuamua on Wednesday November 24 2021, @05:17PM (4 children)
We still haven't proven that live exists anywhere in the galaxy except Earth, and now this elusive life shows up on our doorstep as a gift horse and we want to incinerate it?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday November 24 2021, @05:36PM (2 children)
It's paranoid foolishness. The "forwards contamination" argument is a bit reasonable, if we want to be certain that the life we encountered wasn't something we imported, but anything evolved to live on, say Europa or Mars would be at a MASSIVE disadvantage for even surviving under earth conditions. And that's if nothing ate it. (Microbes will even eat some plastics, which were specifically designed so that they wouldn't do that. I think Teflon is safe against that, but not much else except in the short run.)
(FWIW, some plastics are nearly impervious, because their surfaces repell water. A few repell both water and oil. But only flourine bonds are so strong that they can't be broken by chemical attack. This doesn't mean that it won't take awhile for a microbe to eat something to evolve...and it's got to gain some advantage by doing so. But it will happen.)
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Common Joe on Wednesday November 24 2021, @07:25PM (1 child)
We literally do not know how easy it is for life to exist outside of our atmosphere. But we are learning. Bacteria, algae, and moss [futurism.com] can survive the hellish rigors of space. And if single celled organisms aren't enough, there are the tardigrades [acs.org]. The panspermia theory [wikipedia.org] became a hypothesis the same year the Wright Brothers flew a plane for the first time.
We know life can exists in space. We simply don't know how easy it is for life to adapt one way or another -- or how dangerous it is. I mean, less than a century ago, we were giving out jewerly made out of radioactive materials [epa.gov] and making people sick. A mistake of this kind might not kill all life on Earth, but it could kill most trees. Or all the bees. Of course, it would really suck if an invasive species [noaa.gov] wiped out the plankton in our oceans [noaa.gov]. (I don't think humans would survive that one.)
So, no, not paranoid foolishness.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Wednesday November 24 2021, @09:07PM
If they can survive, they're probably already here. We've got fragments known to be from Mars and the Moon. Dust from outer space rains down all the time. But everything we've checked uses the same protein selection and pretty much the same genetic code. Anything larger than a virus and we can say it uses a close modification of the same ribosome protein pattern. So they've all got common ancestry.
Worrying about this is paranoid foolishness. It's not literally impossible, but the probability is so low that it's not worth worrying about. Now if we find a working ecosystem somewhere else, then I'd revise my priors and say we ought to check this carefully. But I still wouldn't be very worried.
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(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 24 2021, @11:27PM
Life in the universe is still not convinced that there is life on earth. We need to get out there, and disabuse them of the idea that earth is dead.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Wednesday November 24 2021, @06:17PM
Not to worry. Major Arthur Mancheck, the head of Project Scoop has a phone number to call in case of just this sort of thing.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday November 24 2021, @06:31PM
What if it were possible to build an underground zoo like facility to confine and enslave non terrestrial organisms for the public amusement? This could be done under the guise of scientific study. The facility could be equipped with a nuclear sterilization mechanism in case unvaccinated persons invaded the facility. In the event of sterilization, the heirs of visitors on that day would be issued a refund.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24 2021, @07:26PM (1 child)
The last two years have proven the human race is in bigger danger of extinction
from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday November 24 2021, @09:10PM
Not just the last two years. That's been proven over and over. Even the Cuban Missle Crisis wasn't the first occasion.
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(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Wednesday November 24 2021, @08:31PM
I am sure this alien organisms contamination will be very good for business in emerging vax industry.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 25 2021, @08:18PM
the space contamination will prolly be in form of of shape-shifting alien lizards with winning personalities that open native-human-kind-"saving" bio- and genetic research labs ...